


the rainy season

by cirque



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, IN SPACE!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22515268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: The gyr harvest that year was rough.
Relationships: Female Homesteader on Terraformed Planet/Female Wounded Stranger (Original Work)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	the rainy season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Measured_Words](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/gifts).



The gyr harvest that year was rough. The rows of fruit had mostly rotted underneath the relentless sun, and what wasn’t rotted was going there fast. Charlotte worked as quickly as her body permitted, snatching fruit from its bowers in clumsy handfuls, cursing the sun. It hung in the sky like an omen; it winked at her like a bully.

Last year she’d had help on the farm. Strapping young interns with enough enthusiasm to see them through the cold months. They had gradually filtered away from the farm until Charlotte was left alone, dwarfed by the magnanimity of the harvest. One route around the sun took five hundred some days, half of which were spent in relative shadow. If Charlotte didn’t get the fruit in by the time the rains came, they may as well have never been planted.

She got her hands around a conglomeration of fruit, yanking it towards her. They looked like overlarge pomegranate seeds, but opaque and oozing. Little specks of orange pith splashed her face when she applied pressure and she groaned: gyr was sticky as all hell, and notoriously difficult to get off one’s skin. She scrubbed at her cheeks, but now her fingers were sticky and she cursed, loud enough for the neighbours to hear likely, cursed up into the purpling expanse of the midday sky. The sun beat on; the solitary speck, the only flaw.

These conditions were unforgiving on anyone unlucky enough to be out in them, and it was for this reason that Charlotte stopped in her work as a lone traveller came gamboling from beyond the horizon. Her farmlands stretched out into nothingness, and the traveller was weaving between the gyr rows, occasionally hitting a bush or tree.

Charlotte’s first thought was the gun, and her second was guilt: what had life here done to her, that she thought of shooting a stranger? Life on Levven was tough, and she had to constantly remind herself that she signed up for this, that she willingly left earth. But still, she ached for the security of the gun. There wasn’t much use for it out here; it sat growing dusty in the drawer.

The stranger wasn’t making much progress - they had slowed considerably and, as they came into focus, Charlotte saw that they were clutching their side and almost bent double. Never mind the gun; the stranger looked like they’d just wandered from a warzone. She relaxed considerably before realising: what did this mean?

Charlotte dropped her handful of gyr berries into the basket at her feet. She faced the stranger head on, with all the bravado she could summon. It was a woman, she could see that now. A young woman with sandy short hair and the red telltale skin of someone who had been out in the elements for quite some time. She wore a tattered business suit; who wore something like that on a jaunt through the desert?

“Hello,” Charlotte wasn’t sure what else to say. “Don’t come any closer.” She held up her hands to show that she was friendly and unarmed.

The woman stopped a healthy twenty metres from Charlotte. She was breathing heavily, and Charlotte spotted a wetness pooling in the torn fabric of her shoulder -  _ blood _ . Beneath her blazer Charlotte could see red soaking her white crumpled shirt.

“The hell…?” Charlotte gasped.

The woman was panting. She looked in shock, pale as a sheet, trembling from head to toe. She had a haunted look in her eyes that put a chill in Charlotte’s belly. “I just went head-to-head with a Levbear. I mean you no harm,” she gasped, almost conversationally.

Charlotte swore again. Levbears were prone to attacking lone travellers, even more so if you wandered too close to their mountainous territory. General Lam had always said: Levven belongs to the bears, we’re only renting. She could see now the claw marks on the woman’s upper arm, and the dangerously close rip near her stomach.

She approached the stranger carefully. She still wasn’t sure what was going on, and it paid to be cautious. “I’m Colonel Charlotte Gray. Who are you?”

“Essie Ritter. EnergyCorp.”

“You’re an engineer?”

“Close. Office staff.”

Charlotte drew in a whistling breath. “And you just - what? - decided to go wandering through the wasteland by yourself?”

“Not at first. I was with a whole load of other people.”

“And they’re…?” Charlotte was afraid to hear the answer.

“Fine, I suppose. I got separated from the main group. I stepped off the path. There are a lot of rocks.”

“ _ Mountains _ . If the bears don’t kill you then the temperature surely will.  _ Stupid. _ ”

“I  _ know _ . Now - if you’re done lecturing me, how about some medical attention?”

Charlotte rushed forward and caught Essie before she collapsed. She leaned in to Charlotte’s shoulder, grateful for the relief. She was only a slight weight, but she wobbled dangerously.

Charlotte positioned the woman carefully. “Walk with me to the house, it’s not far.” She pointed with her free hand towards the horizon where the sleek glass building stood. The sunlight was glinting prettily off the solar panels like a beacon. 

It was slow going, but they made it back to the house in a series of faltering steps, accompanied by frequent winces of pain. Charlotte led Essie into the grande living quarters, depositing her on the white leather sofa. She crossed to the kitchen and filled a bowl with warm water, and grabbed an armful of microfibre tea towels. She retrieved her meagre first-aid kit from the bathroom - it probably wouldn’t be much use on Essie’s injuries, but it was all she had. She deposited her supplies on the seat beside Essie.

Together they peeled off Essie’s once-white shirt, revealing pale skin that was already set to bruising. Charlotte tried to avert her eyes, but Essie sighed meaningfully. 

“Oh please,” she said, her voice strained. “Like I care what you see.” 

Charlotte swallowed. She dabbed uselessly at Essie’s wounded shoulder - she was no doctor, truthfully she had no idea what she was doing. The cut didn’t look too bad - it was bleeding enthusiastically but it didn’t seem very deep. At any rate, Charlotte couldn’t see anything that looked like muscle.

Eventually the bleeding stopped, and Charlotte fixed a sterile bandage over Essie’s shoulder. She moved her attention to the scrape on her stomach, but it was mostly superficial, and it wasn’t even bleeding, though it was sore to the touch. Essie flinched when Charlotte moved her fingers over it.

“Sorry.” Charlotte whispered.

“‘S alright.”

“So, what were you  _ really  _ doing out in the wasteland?”

Essie hissed in pain. “Seriously, it was a guided tour. We were exploring the mountains, looking for suitable spaces to build the next solar farm. I got left behind when I was taking notes, and thought I’d beat everyone to the base by cutting across country.”

“And then the bear happened?”

“And then the bear happened.”

“You’re lucky you wandered onto my land. The nearest neighbour is twenty-odd miles away. You could have bled to death.”

“Yes. Well. Let’s not dwell.”

“I’ll call the doctor out. At the very least you’ll be needing antibiotics. Levbears are full of germs.” They weren’t bears per se; ‘bears’ was just the nearest earth analogy. They were towering figures some seven feet tall on four legs, covered in a thick blubbery fur, with claws to rival a velociraptor. 

Charlotte considered her patient. “Perhaps you ought to call your team as well?”

Essie looked less-than-thrilled at the prospect. “I’m gonna get so much shit from my manager. I’ll be lucky if they don’t fire me.” She prodded her stomach wound experimentally.

Charlotte said nothing, which was wise. She crossed the room and fished her phone out of her pocket. She had the doctor on speed dial, and quickly pulled up the phone conversation. After some embellishing of the truth, Charlotte typed out a mostly-true account of what had happened, keeping a little back to save Essie’s dignity. She emphasised the need for antibiotics. With any luck the doctor would reply soon and send the medicine over to the fabricator for download. Essie could be dosed up before bed.

In the interim, Charlotte busied herself making dinner. It was an effort, cooking for two, in a way that cooking a solitary meal wasn’t. She had grown accustomed to only doing the bare minimum. Now, she paid proper attention to nutrition and cooking times, and at the end presented Essie with a meal she was truly proud of.

Nights on Levven lasted seventeen hours - it got dark outdoors before the meal was finished. The scent of minty Levtrees filled the house; they only budded when the sun set.

By the time the food was ready, Essie had got off the phone with her manager. Apparently they were very sympathetic to her circumstances and there would be no punishment, and they wished her swift healing, but Essie was still doubtful about their sincerity. She handed the phone back with a grimace, and turned to the food, a true smile lighting up her pale face.

“Looks delicious,” Essie said with great enthusiasm. She shovelled in a mouthful of spinach (again, not strictly spinach, but it mostly functioned the same). It was grainy and stringy, and she chewed it arduously. “Tastes it too!”

“Thank you. You can sleep on the sofabed for the night. I’ll get you some blankets.” She took a mouthful of fabricated meat. It had the exact texture and taste of earth lamb, despite there not being a single sheep on the entire planet.

“Cool.” Then, after a moment, Essie said in a small voice. “We  _ are  _ safe from the Levbears out here, right?”

“Of course. I’ve yet to see one actually venture onto my land, and I’ve been here five years. I think there’s something about the gyr berries that spooks them.” She was reminded of the sticky residue that had gotten onto her face; too late - Essie must have seen her looking so foolish. She wiped at it discreetly. 

Essie continued as though she hadn’t seen. “Y’know, I don’t know how I’ll manage to repay you for taking care of me. My job at EnergyCorp doesn’t pay much…” 

“Oh! No, I don’t want your money!”

“Are you sure? Then what?” 

“You could help me pick some gyr berries, tomorrow, before you rejoin your crew?” She could certainly use the help; two pairs of hands were better than one.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Okay.” Charlotte smiled at her, a full smile that went from ear to ear. “Now, let’s get you settled on the sofa.”

She fetched blankets from the supply cupboard. They were the type the agency sent down with her, blue woven wool emblazoned with the logo. Everything had the NASA logo on it these days. She deposited them on the sofa and retrieved one of her own pillows. 

“How’s that?”

“You’re an excellent host.” Essie arranged herself on the squeaky sofa, mindful of her bandage, and gathered the blankets about her. She hissed in pain a couple of times. “I’m surprised at how tired I am.”

“Going toe-to-toe with a Levbear will do that to you.”

“Yeah. I won’t be repeating that one in a hurry.”

“How did you manage to get away?”

Essie laughed. She went a little red about the face, the blush stretching downwards to the skin bared by her open shirt. Charlotte watched it grow, before Essie cleared her throat. “I climbed a mountain cliff, and waited ‘til it got bored and left. That’s where I got the cut. Not exactly thrilling stuff, is it?”

Charlotte couldn’t help the giggle that trickled up her body. “I’m sorry!”

Essie kicked her shoes off. She got herself comfortable under the blanket and pulled it up to her chin. She lay there, blinking up at Charlotte. Charlotte was filled with an almost irrepressible urge to kiss her -  _ almost.  _ She counted her breaths and the feeling passed, but Essie still lay there looking beautiful in the halflight. 

“I’m glad I wandered onto your weird little farm.” Essie said.

“‘Weird’?”

“Yeah. What on earth convinced you to up sticks and move here?”

Charlotte drew in a difficult breath. “It was an assignment. Not compulsory - I had the option to stay on earth. It’s just… I had nothing tying me there. How sad is that, nothing tying me to the whole damn planet?”

When she’d come to Levven, it had been just a handful of letters that she left behind. One for her parents, one for her ex, one for her boss thanking her for the privilege. No one came to wave her farewell, and that was all the evidence she needed that she was making the right decision. Coming to grow a difficult-to-cultivate berry in the asscrack of nowhere, surrounded by deadly bears and an unforgiving sun… It had not exactly been her life plan, but there was a satisfaction in the simple work. She had trained as a soldier, but now she lived as a farmer. She had to be OK with that.

When her head hit the pillow, she dreamed of Essie, terrified in the wilderness, screaming for help. In the dream she defeated the Levbears with handfuls of extremely sticky gyr fruit that matted into their fur. 

The morning dawned unrelentless. The sun beat down on the cracked dry earth. Soon there would be rains. Soon there would be calm. Charlotte and Essie shared a quiet breakfast of bread and fruit, eating of last year’s gyr jam. It had mellowed during its year of storage, it was runnier and sweeter and juicier. It tasted divine, or so Essie said, her face exploding in delight. Charlotte’s tastebuds must have dulled with familiarity, because to her it just tasted like hard work. Essie laughed, and Charlotte found she liked the mischievous glint in her eyes. She was beautiful when she smiled. Charlotte swallowed awkwardly, feeling gyr pips in the back of her throat.

They trooped out into the fields after breakfast. They worked back to back, pulling fruit off of parallel vines. Charlotte’s hands got sticky in a splitsecond, and she gave up on keeping them clean. The gyr berries responded negatively to industrialised farming, delicate as they were, and so Charlotte was used to the work, deftly flicking berries into the basket strapped to her front - at least, those that hadn’t been ruined by the heat. Gyr berries were a sensitive fruit.

Drones buzzed by overhead. Every now and then Charlotte would take a break, wiping her sweating brow, and try and pick out slogans and ads plastered across the drone’s bodies. Once, EnergyCorp’s mascot Doctor Solar waved down at them, shimmering in the golden sunlight. Essie waved back in a mock salute.

“Did you find somewhere to build the solar plant?”

Essie frowned. “Huh?”

“Before you got lost, you said you were on a scouting trip?”

“Oh, yeah. They decided on a plot of land on the south side of the mountains. More sun, y’know.”

“Great,” said Charlotte, who wasn’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of  _ more _ solar panels taking up space, but she understood that the planet’s growing population meant there was need for greater power. Levven was a small planet, about a fifth the size of Earth, and it was getting more and more inhabited by the month. It seemed there was a new ship arriving every week, and they all needed somewhere to live. Out here in the sticks, no one wanted the land. Only Charlotte and her equally unlucky neighbours lived here.

Solar panels were certainly better than wind turbines at any rate; everytime Charlotte journeyed to Levven City she was deafened by the whirling of their reaching arms. EnergyCorp had only recently got into renewable power - LevCity’s ghostly abandoned nuclear plant spoke to that.

Essie withered in the hot sun. She was covered in a shiny layer of sweat. She shielded her eyes with her hands and scanned the horizon. “Look - rainclouds!”

She was correct. Several heavy-looking clouds had gathered over the distant mountains. Charlotte swore profoundly. “Not yet!” They weren’t even halfway done with the harvest. She scanned the remaining laiden gyr bushes - how many would be sacrificed to the rains? A hundred? More?

“Hurry up,” she said, “let’s get as many in as we can before it starts.” The rains on Levven were biblical in scale. There would be no hope for the gyr berries left behind, she knew from experience. She dreaded being caught out in it, but she couldn’t abandon the remaining fruit.

The two of them doubled their efforts, working in relative silence, only calling across the field to each other a few times. Charlotte bent herself double over the stumpy vines. She emptied her basket five times, pouring the berries into the great vat beside her house. She knew there was no way they would ever get all the fruit, but she was desperate to try.

The rains came at midday. Slowly at first, then all at once. The sound of thunder echoed around Charlotte’s valley of land. The sun was swallowed up. The water came down thick and heavy, hurting where it struck them.

Essie tossed aside her basket and howled up into the roiling sky. She laughed and flung her arms out wide, welcoming the weather. Charlotte couldn’t help but stare at the way her wet clothes clung to her body. There was something mesmerising about it. She dropped her handful of gyr berries, already dissolving into mush under the heavy rain, and moved to stand beside Essie. Together they worshipped the sky.

Essie flung her arms around Charlotte and pulled her close, pressing a vibrant kiss to her rain-wet lips. Charlotte gasped, then relaxed into it, her hands getting lost in Essie’s sodden hair.

“The rain ain’t all bad!” Essie yelled over the storm.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and pulled her close for another fervent kiss. They could have carried on kissing under the still-hot sky, but the rain started to leave impact marks on their skin, heavy as it was, and Essie keenly suggested they take it indoors.

They barely made it through the glass door before they collapsed onto the waiting sofa. Charlotte pushed Essie down into the cushions. She avoided putting any pressure on Essie’s wounded shoulder and stomach. She placed her hands carefully beneath her, and held her breath as they kissed, seeing stars.

There had been something growing within her ever since she laid eyes on Essie, and it growled to get out now, delighting in the little gasps that Essie made. She plucked uselessly at Charlotte’s clothing. Their hands were sticky with gyr residue and everything they touched turned sticky too, but Charlotte couldn’t bring herself to care.

She pulled away, and looked down at Essie, all red and flushed. “What are we doing?” She couldn’t quite believe it. She gasped for breath.

Essie rolled her eyes. “We’re having a good time, is what we’re doing. Do you want to stop?”

Charlotte considered for a moment, before saying on an out-breath. “No. Definitely not.”

“Good.” Essie kissed her senseless, kissed her dizzy, kissed her thoroughly. Outside the rains pummelled on, and Charlotte found she didn’t care at all.


End file.
